Budapest Jewish Leader Testifies Against Eichmann’s Aide in Vienna

A former member of the Budapest Jewish Council who negotiated several times with Franz Novak testified today at the former Gestapo officer’s trial here that Novak certainly knew of the fate of those he helped to send to the Auschwitz death camp as Adolph Eichmann’s transport officer.

Philip Von Freudiger, whose duties in 1944 included negotiations with Eichmann, accused Novak of having personally directed the transport of 1,500 Jewish men, women and children from Camp Kistrosa to Auschwitz. Novak has denied that he knew of the Hazi plan to kill every Jew seized in the lightning conquests of European countries during World War II.

Freudiger also testified that two Jews who escaped from Auschwitz sent CCC messages to Britain and the United States, asking them to bomb the railroad lines on which the death transports were rolling but that nobody “had an ear” for the appeals. Novak is on trial on charges of complicity in thousands of Nazi murders.